Death on Franklin

This morning I rode the bicycle past my first Franklin Blvd. death. At the corner of Franklin and 46th a 91 year old lady was killed at 5:30 this morning while crossing the road. It's hard to say which direction she was crossing, but it matters little. She was the victim of a hit and run.

Don't know whether the red pickup was at fault or if the lady was, or maybe a combination of both. Far, far too many fatalities result from bicyclist or pedestrian ignorance or willful breaking of the traffic rules. When you build destinations miles apart from one another, and build crosswalks miles apart from one another, and build curb radii so goddamn wide that pedestrian crossing distance is doubled while car speeds are tripled, there are all sorts of incentives for people to willingly disregard their own safety and cross anywhere they can.

While the CHP and SAC PD were doing their thing to process the scene, I couldn't help but consider how just fifty feet away Vicki's roach coach was parked, and how all her patrons park illegally on Franklin, forcing me into the traffic lane while ordering their morning burritos. It would have been rather imprudent, I told myself, to bother the CHP with this. They were clearly more focused on managing this accident after the fact. To bother them at this time, to bother them in an attempt to prevent the next fatality, well, that most certainly would have been inappropriate.

Honestly, I can't believe a 91 year old Vietnamese lady would have been bolting across Franklin Blvd. in the dark. My own guess is that she was walking legally across 46th at Franklin (with no crosswalk markings) and was hit by that red truck that was either turning from Franklin onto 46th or from 46th onto Franklin. People routinely take that at excessive speed, and in the dark...well, the consequences are obvious.

There are all sorts of reasons why people will flee an accident, and my contempt for society at large is borne from such people and such reasons. Uninsured, unregistered, intoxicated, scared, frightened, callous, on parole, a stolen truck, or maybe they just didn't want the point on their record and the increased insurance premium...for any of these and for other reasons we will just never know, people flee the scene because they can.

It is built into our national ethos to hold no personal responsibility for anything while embracing unearned riches -- it's the bankers, not us, who caused the economic shitstorm. Sue the ladder manufacturer, sue for the hot coffee in the lap, medical malpractice, lottery money for "education," my diabetes prevents me from exercising, I should resolve all my debts through debt management services. And I didn't see her, I tried to stop, but I...